Author | Walter de la Mare |
---|---|
Illustrator |
|
Language | English |
Genre | Children's fantasy short stories, fairy tales |
Publisher | Faber and Faber |
Publication date | 1947 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 437 pp (first edition) [1] |
OCLC | 53052613 |
LC Class | PZ7.D3724 Co [3] |
Collected Stories for Children is a collection of 17 fantasy stories or original fairy tales by Walter de la Mare, first published by Faber in 1947 with illustrations by Irene Hawkins. [1] [3] De la Mare won the annual Carnegie Medal recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. [4] It was the first collection to win the award [5] and the first time that previously published material had been considered. [6]
The collection comprises 17 stories. [2] [3]
Irene Hawkins was the original illustrator. She had illustrated several of the author's early collections and Muriel M. Green said in 1948 review of Collected Stories, "Mr de la Mare is especially fortunate in having found, in Irene Hawkins, an illustrator who can interpret his work so perfectly, and this volume is enhanced by her charming illustrations." [8] For the 1957 edition new illustrations were commissioned from Robin Jacques, a highly regarded illustrator of fairy-tales. Marcus Crouch considers these line-drawings among Jacques' best work, artistically emphasising the homeliness of de la Mare's world. [9]
In the decade after the First World War some of the best work for children was in poetry, fantasy and poetic fantasy, [7] and there was a spate of original stories in the folk-tale manner. [10] Walter de la Mare, primarily a poet, published several short books of such stories for children in the 1920s and 1930s, and the best of his tales were brought together in his Collected Stories for Children. [7] The stories range over a variety of subjects, but all have the touch of tender, dream-like melancholy which is the hallmark of the author's work in general. [10]
Roger Lancelyn Green described Walter de la Mare's stories as having a strong but very particular appeal: "These strange, homely tales of wonder captivate a limited audience – and are frequently foisted on children by adults who have fallen under their very real spell. It is a spell, however, and one of selective magic, catching some readers away into the true lands of enchantment, and boring others to distraction." [11]
The award of the Carnegie Medal was unexpected, as none of the stories were new, but the collection was considered to give an opportunity for assessing and acknowledging "the achievement of the most gifted writer of the century who had dedicated his finest powers to delighting children". [10]
Walter John de la Mare was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for his psychological horror short fiction, including "Seaton's Aunt" and "All Hallows". In 1921, his novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, and his post-war Collected Stories for Children won the 1947 Carnegie Medal for British children's books.
Pauline Diana Baynes was an English illustrator, author, and commercial artist. She contributed drawings and paintings to more than 200 books, mostly in the children's genre. She was the first illustrator of some of J. R. R. Tolkien's minor works, including Farmer Giles of Ham, Smith of Wootton Major, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. She became well-known for her cover illustrations for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and for her poster map with inset illustrations, A Map of Middle-earth. She illustrated all seven volumes of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia, from the first book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Gaining a reputation as the "Narnia artist", she illustratred spinoffs like Brian Sibley's The Land of Narnia. In addition to work for other authors, including illustrating Roger Lancelyn Green's The Tales of Troy and Iona and Peter Opie's books of nursery rhymes, Baynes created some 600 illustrations for Grant Uden's A Dictionary of Chivalry, for which she won the Kate Greenaway Medal. Late in her life she began to write and illustrate her own books, with animal or Biblical themes.
The Carnegie Medal for Illustration is a British award that annually recognises "distinguished illustration in a book for children". It is conferred upon the illustrator by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) which inherited it from the Library Association.
Victor Ambrus was a Hungarian-born British illustrator of history, folk tales, and animal story books. He also became known from his appearances on the Channel 4 television archaeology series Time Team, on which he visualised how sites under excavation may have once looked. Ambrus was an Associate of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers. He was also a patron of the Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors up until its merger with the Institute for Archaeologists in 2011.
David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.
Eve Garnett was an English writer and illustrator. She is best known for The Family from One End Street, a 1937 children's novel that features a large, small-town, working-class family.
Helen Sonia Cooper is a British illustrator and an author of children's literature. She grew up in Cumbria, where she practiced literature and piano playing. She currently lives in Oxford.
Ruth Manning-Sanders was an English poet and author born in Wales, known for a series of children's books for which she collected and related fairy tales worldwide. She published over 90 books in her lifetime
William Stobbs was a British author and illustrator. From 1950 to 1958, he served as the head of the design department at the London School of Printing and Kindred Trades. He later moved to Kent, England where he became principal of Maidstone College of Art.
Winifred Shirley Hughes was an English author and illustrator. She wrote more than fifty books, which have sold more than 11.5 million copies, and illustrated more than two hundred.
Janet Ahlberg and Allan Ahlberg were a British married couple who created many children's books, including picture books that regularly appear at the top of "most popular" lists for public libraries. They worked together for 20 years until Janet's death from cancer in 1994. He wrote the books and she illustrated them. Allan Ahlberg has also written dozens of books with other illustrators.
Errol John Le Cain was a British animator and children's book illustrator. In 1984 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for "distinguished illustration in a book for children" for Hiawatha's Childhood.
City of Gold and other stories from the Old Testament is a collection of 33 Old Testament Bible stories retold for children by Peter Dickinson, illustrated by Michael Foreman, and published by Victor Gollancz Ltd in 1980. The British Library Association awarded Dickinson his second Carnegie Medal recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject and highly commended Foreman for the companion Kate Greenaway Medal.
Helen Gillian Oxenbury is an English illustrator and writer of children's picture books. She lives in North London. She has twice won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal, the British librarians' award for illustration and been runner-up four times. For the 50th anniversary of that Medal (1955–2005) her 1999 illustrated edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was named one of the top ten winning works.
Mini Grey is a British illustrator and writer of children's books, especially picture books for young children. She won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal from the professional librarians, recognising the year's best-illustrated children's book published in the UK, for The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, published by Jonathan Cape in 2006.
The Ghost Drum is a children's fantasy novel by Susan Price, published by Faber in 1987, and the first book in the Ghost World trilogy. It is an original fairy tale using elements from Russian history and Russian folklore. Like many traditional tales it is full of cruelty, violence and sudden death.
A Grass Rope is a children's novel by William Mayne, first published by Oxford in 1957 with illustrations by Lynton Lamb. Mayne won the annual Carnegie Medal recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.
The Little Bookroom is a collection of twenty-seven stories for children by Eleanor Farjeon, published by Oxford University Press in 1955 with illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. They were selected by the author from stories published earlier in her career. Most were in the fairy tale style.
Freya Blackwood is an Australian illustrator and special effects artist. She worked on special effects for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy from 2001 to 2003 and won the Kate Greenaway Medal for British children's book illustration in 2010.
Harold Jones was a British artist, illustrator and writer of children's books. Critic Brian Alderson called him "perhaps the most original children's book illustrator of the period". He established his reputation with lithographs illustrating This Year: Next Year (1937), a collection of verses by Walter de la Mare.